


there's a black house burning in the moonlight

by kimaracretak



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Akallabêth, Body Horror, Doriath, Drowning, Exile, F/F, First Age, Fourth Age, Gore, Laketown, Light Bondage, Masturbation, Murder, Nazgûl | Ringwraiths, Old Forest (Tolkien), Original Character Death(s), Rebuilding, Rohan, Second Age, Third Age, Vampirism, Witch-King!Míriel, a lil bit of smaug but not enough for a character tag yknow, eowyn's immortal always i don't make the rules, forests that probably want to eat you, lakes that probably want to eat you, like six thousand ways for the world to end, not in the same ficlets tho (usually), rivers that probably want to eat you, several deaths of dudes who do not die in canon, some angst occasionally
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-24 05:16:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 37
Words: 3,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7495278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/tfw/">Tolkien femslash week 2016</a>, drabbles on a theme of 'fey creatures and the women they love'.</p><p><em>Warnings,</em> for those who want to know what to skip ahead of time<br/>Chapter 1: Dubiously consensual vampirism<br/>Chapter 2: Character death<br/>Chapter 9: Murder, gore<br/>Chapter 11: Murder<br/>Chapter 13: Body horror, gore, vampirism<br/>Chapter 24: Drowning<br/>Chapter 36: Character death</p><p>Please see individual chapter notes for more specific pairings/ratings/prompts/warnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. your crimson could break entangled here

**Author's Note:**

> title from the birthday massacre, 'leaving tonight'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which thuringwethil is there for luthien's end.
> 
> luthien/thuringwethil, rated t
> 
>  **warnings:** dubiously consensual vampirism

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from collide, 'halo'
> 
> N22 (book titles: fall on your knees)

Thuringwethil is there to see Lúthien's mortal breathe his last, to cradle her in wings darker than night and hardly more unkind.

"You should have died," Lúthien murmurs, eyes shut but the claws around her wrists too familiar.

"You were meant to die soon." She falls to her knees beside Lúthien, draws her down as well. Kisses her lips roughly, nips her neck more gently. "You know too little of death to bargain with it. Mortality too can be taken."

Lúthien chases her mouth, whispers, _please_.

Thuringwethil does not ask _please, what_ , and Lúthien's sweet blood does not answer.

Yet.


	2. i mostly remember our songs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an elf and a dwarf at the end of time
> 
> tauriel/original dwarf lady, rated k
> 
>  **warnings:** character death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from eluveitie, 'epilogue'
> 
> O37 (third age locations: the lonely mountain)

You return to the mountain more carefully than Durin's folk, but that is the last care that you take; it falls away so easily in the face of the echoes of the songs trapped in the caves with you.

You could drown there, but drown instead in the eyes and mouth of an elf who, like the mountain, grows far beyond her time: you are strong for the mountain and weak for her, sing to the stone and listen to her.

She has rejected the halls of her people, but you die in her arms in the halls of yours.


	3. the memory of trees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the trees remember, even if the black rider doesn't
> 
> goldberry/lady of the blue brooch, rated t

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from enya
> 
> I12 (third age locations: the old forest)

All living things fall before her, sigh quiet farewells and crumble to dust. She rides with her sisters for Queen and Master, until the forest.

They are old, these trees. They saw her when she was young and silver-blue, these trees.

Her sisters ride around, unnerved by things they cannot name. She stays. A woman comes and cradles her face in sharp insubstantial hands, and the remnants of who she was whispers _Goldberry_.

"You're safe now," Goldberry croons. "You fell. But I'm catching you, just as I promised."

Behind them, the river breaks its banks and all is blue again.


	4. come and breathe the sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sigrid helps laketown grow, but it is tauriel who reminds her she can live
> 
> sigrid/tauriel, rated k

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from epica, 'dreamscape'
> 
> I12 (book titles: send my roots rain)

It is not easy to rebuild a town that was never well-loved by those it sheltered, but Sigrid takes to the task as she has taken to all others given her.

Feed your siblings, Sigrid. Save the town, Sigrid.

She grows older, more tired. She grew up long ago.

Tauriel returns, and brings with her not Orcs but gifts, for Sigrid and her family and all Laketown. Sigrid the town leader hosts a dinner in honour, but Sigrid the woman sits with her late beside the fire, takes her hand and kisses the corner of her mouth and says, _stay_.


	5. this story's missing a wishing well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they care not for endings when they have each other
> 
> arwen/tauriel, rated m

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from the birthday massacre, 'kill the lights'
> 
> O43 (book titles: girl walking backwards)

When the end comes, Arwen retraces the steps of her life, says her farewells to each place that sheltered her and does not mourn when she finds them dying: she will not die alone.

In the thing that was Lothlórien Tauriel meets her on her own way to the end, and they camp together for a while.

Tauriel is still alive, too alive for this world, but she licks swirls across Arwen's skin, laughs against her sex as she sucks her clit and curls two fingers inside her.

Not wishes, not promises, but enough, until the earth takes them whole.


	6. almost seen a world in her eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in rebuilt esgaroth, sigrid dreams
> 
> (one-sided) sigrid/tauriel, rated t

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from xandria, 'she's nirvana'
> 
> I12 (lyrics & poetry: i want a woman's wit swift as a fox)

Esgaroth drags Sigrid down, for all that it is so new. Sometimes she feels that every spark of life she gives to it she will never see again, but still she cannot leave.

She dreams sometimes of an elf-woman with eyes brighter than the sun and strength to defeat an army. Imagines those fingers so sure on a bowstring carding through her hair, imagines mapping Tauriel's sweet skin with her lips.

Childish fancies, she knows. But Esgaroth is dark even absent the dragon's shadow, and the lake even hungrier, and still Sigrid dreams of Tauriel saving her from this too.


	7. the coming sky so white

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> magic diverges, and music remains
> 
> galadriel/goldberry, rated k

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> O43 (lyrics & poetry: let me find you and the song forever between us)
> 
> title from katatonia, 'the longest year'

The Sea is a crossing for the elves: to them it sings in a tongue it uses for no others. Goldberry floats sometimes at the mouth of her river, feels the salt prickle across her skin like the hands of her long-ago lover before their magics diverged.

Galadriel stands there with her sometimes, sees her no matter her form. She was ever too proud to listen to the sea but Goldberry's language is out of time, and this Galadriel hears.

Goldberry's waters lap at Galadriel's feet, her small inhuman mouth kisses her lips, and the thin music between them flares.


	8. tú serás el sol de nuestro nuevo amanecer (you will be the sun of our new dawn)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> eowyn has mixed feelings about travelling to gondor
> 
> eowyn/arwen, rated k
> 
>  **warnings:** faramir is super dead and aragorn probably is as well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from diabulus in musica, 'furia de libertad'
> 
> N19 (lyrics & poetry: and all my swords have turned to words that blow like poems in the wind)

Éowyn stands frozen in Rohan's too-empty fields after the war. Still watching. Still waiting. Can it really be over?

 _We just got you back_ , the wind whispers through the grasses. _We do not wish to let you leave_.

Arwen joins her sometimes, wraps her arms around her waist and rests her chin on her shoulder. Makes the unstoppable sky seem somehow kinder.

 _Faramir left you his city_ , Arwen reminds her, and she shivers too at the thought of walls.

_But will you be queen with me, my lady?_

_I will_ , Arwen says, and trails kisses down her neck in promise.


	9. blood burns cold there

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the mirkwood guard has other duties after the necromancer passes
> 
> tauriel/original elf lady, rated m
> 
>  **warnings:** murder, a bit of gore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from mostly autumn, 'greenwood the great (shadowy glades)'
> 
> O41 (lyrics & poetry: i sing for love, i sing for me, i'll shout it out, like a bird set free)

The spiders recede with the passing of the necromancer, and some think it freedom. But the sky lightens, the cage shifts, and that is all.

There are those who would leave the forest, and these the guard binds with vines and thorns. By day they pin them out under the trees they would abandon, split their skin with sharpest silver and make them watch as the hungry land reclaims their blood.

By night Tauriel kneels at Dungalad's feet, sings to her of the day's sacrifices, kisses and caresses her with bloodstained lips and hands, and knows that she is loved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Dungalad_ from the Nandorian _dunna_ : black, and _galad_ : tree, because there is no such thing as subtlety when constructing a name from a language that has thirty words (nosekisses to Elleth for helping me figure it out)


	10. night, a promise of rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> expected memories, and an unexpected return
> 
> galadriel/melian, rated k

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from tristania, 'exile'
> 
> I15 (book titles: sing you home)

Her time with Melian was short, set against the thousands of years she's seen and lived. And still it claws at her: Melian's voice in every echo of birdsong, Melian's fingers chasing shivers down her spine every time the sea-magic floods her veins.

Galadriel imagines Melian returning, imagines saying, _here is what I have wrought with your lessons, here is how I have grown, here is what you have missed_.

Never once did she think she would return, cross the Sea and rejoin a land long fled her bones.

(It is not the waters her ship follows, but a song.)


	11. til the last of suns is set

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> goldberry has a collection, deep down where only she can see
> 
> goldberry/lady of the blue brooch, rated m (probably, idk about this one)
> 
>  **warnings:** murder of the 'but i want you forever' sort

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from xandria, 'mermaids'
> 
> G31 (lyrics & poetry: the petals reach inward, the blue tips bend toward the bluer heart and the flowers are lost)

Few humans disturb Goldberry, but when they do, oh, they love so sweet and so long, pretty blue dolls in soft blue waters.

The one who braves the Withywindle when it is still icy trusts easily, sets the blue clasp of her cloak aside and joins Goldberry in the river, smooth cold limbs tangled with hers and hot eager mouth between her thighs.

Goldberry will miss this one after she is still: she follows so happily when Goldberry leads her down, down until the last of her breath is gone and Goldberry must carry her the rest of the way.


	12. dark eyes in a bright soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and the drabble cycle takes a break from fey serial killers for _smut_
> 
> luthien/galadriel, rated m
> 
>  **warnings:** light bondage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from mastercastle, 'last desire'
> 
> G31 (book titles: songs of silk)

Lúthien lies pinned and spread, wrists and ankles flexing against the silk of her bonds as Galadriel trails the cold tip of a paintbrush between her breasts, watches spirals and stars bloom across her stomach.

The silk across her mouth swallows her moans but she arches up off the bed anyway, and the lines of paint slip from her skin to the sheets.

"Be good," Galadriel whispers, pressing Lúthien's hips back down with her free hand. Lúthien bites at the silk, but stills.

" _So_ good," Galadriel murmurs, finally setting the brush aside to dip her fingers into Lúthien's wet heat.


	13. is there a heaven great enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> luthien has one last request
> 
> luthien/thuringwethil, rated m
> 
>  **warnings:** body horror, gore, vampirism

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from leaves' eyes, 'irish rain'
> 
> I15 (lyrics & poetry: the lines of you were the closest thing to holy i'd ever heard)

Thuringwethil's body is as broken as the island, wings and fingers shattered. Still she smiles when Lúthien arrives.

"You should have joined me, princess." Blood chokes every word.

Lúthien's teeth are sharper than Thuringwethil remembers. "I don't need you for the life you promised me."

She kisses the blood away, and in her pride Thuringwethil misses the first cut of the knife.

The first, but not the second, and she screams until she stares at her own face.

"You were ever the most beautiful," she hears, before teeth pierce the remnants of her skin and all is red and gone.  


	14. we'll never comprehend that we never should have been

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> eowyn does not stop fighting, and arwen does not stop worrying
> 
> arwen/eowyn, rated k

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from xandria, 'sweet atonement'
> 
> I15 (third age locations: rohan)

Arwen is waiting when she wakes, fever-dream blurry but solid when Éowyn's flailing hand catches her arm.

Arwen clasps her hand gently, strokes her sweat-damp hair. "I fear you will break more bones chasing shadows through the fields than you broke driving back orcs," she sighs.

Éowyn groans and tightens her grip, wondering how one so old and wise could fail to hear the wind. Shadows grow insubstantial now, and there are too many spaces in the ruined grasslands where creatures from the border realms can hide.

Arwen shakes her head, but kisses her palm and does not let go.


	15. there's nothing in the airspace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> celebrían and goldberry say goodbye
> 
> celebrían/goldberry, rated k

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from katatonia, 'deliberation'
> 
> O42 (third age locations: the grey havens)

"You're leaving," Goldberry says, and though it is only a fact, she sounds petulant.

Celebrían doesn't answer immediately, just kicks her feet in the water and stares at their joined hands on the pier. "You wouldn't understand," she says. Maybe if she closes her eyes her ship will disappear, she will be young again in Lothlórien when Goldberry's kisses still tasted like salvation. "You are too much a part of this world to know what it is to feel you can no longer live in it."

"No," Goldberry agrees, "but I know I will miss you, my strange little one."


	16. we're hiding from her love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> melian remembers what was before the waking of the world
> 
> melian/ungoliant, rated t

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from draconian, 'the drowning age'
> 
> O42 (lyrics & poetry: you were the first person on earth)

Shadows cling sticky-sweet to the walls of Doriath, long cobwebbed fingers stretching out from the nameless reaches of Nan Dungortheb. Hunting flames, hunting lights, and all lie awake but only Melian knows the silent presence behind them.

She remembers Valinor and she remembers that things did not come from the dark but that the dark came to her. She remembers eyes in the void and she remembers spider silk enough to drown even her song.

Melian does not speak of the mandibles clicking under the winds that howl in pain but she feels them spin ever closer to her heart.


	17. hungry before we were born

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thoughts are funny things at the edge of doriath
> 
> melian/ungoliant, rated t(-ish)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from fever ray, 'keep the streets empty for me'
> 
> O42 (book titles: i can't think straight)

Melian walks the Girdle alone when the valley wind is too loud. Drags her fingers over the spells, watches them light up, unnatural, under her fingertips.

There is someone in the dark and she is shifting clicking drawing near. Melian can taste her voice on the wind, knows she can hear the lights shining under her spellwork.

Melian rearranges her web, braids words over and under. Wasn't this knot on the other side of the barrier last time?

No matter, she thinks.

There are webs outside too and things Melian does not want to think of are far too close.


	18. sparks sent flying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> all dis has she has forged from stone
> 
> dis/ladies who are possibly dwarves and possibly horrorterrors _i am really stretching the bounds of femslash here i'm sorry_ , rated k

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from amorphis, 'sampo'
> 
> I17 (book titles: the stone gods)

Dis's gods have promised her nothing, in any world. All she has is clawed from fire and stone, forged and folded in Mahal's legacy that is now all she has to leave.

She has lost her brothers.

She has lost her sons.

She has returned to the mountain once lost in dragonfire and still she crafts though now alone, deep in the halls below the mountain; catches the eyes and kisses the lips of women she does not remember from exile.

They promise her fire.

They promise her stone.

They do not, quite, promise a god, but Dis follows anyway.


	19. and made me face my longing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dis, and a life in exile
> 
> dis/various lady elves, rated k

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from amorphis, 'highest star'
> 
> I17 (third age locations: ered luin)

There are rocks and clay in Dis's blood, and they know that she does not belong to the Blue Mountains. They layer in her bones, waiting for the day they can return from exile.

They drive her out to the foothills, nights when dragonfire roars behind her eyelids.

There she meets elven women in the Havens, some kind and some less; all of them, though, understand the ghosts in her eyes.

These mountains are nothing but a waypoint to all of them, and in their shadows they offer each other what comfort they can, with carved trinkets and bodies alike.


	20. you tried as if tomorrow came

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> gondor does not welcome newcomers
> 
> arwen/eowyn, rated k

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from kamelot, 'if tomorrow came'
> 
> G36 (book titles: the paying guests)

The walls in Gondor settle uneasily on Eowyn's shoulders. So much blood she spilled on the battlefield for this realm, and still it does not accept it as payment enough.

 _I feel it too_ , Arwen tells her, one of their stolen nights tangled in Eowyn's bed. _Gondor grew weary of kings and queens long ago._

Eowyn cannot tell her that it is so much more: that they do not know how to rebuild for peace, that all cities mean is you cannot see who is watching you. So she kisses her again instead, and waits for the sky to fall.


	21. wind and rain to make you play

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> goldberry has plans
> 
> celebrian/goldberry, rated m

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from mastercastle, 'gold violet'
> 
> I11 (book titles: spring fire)

When the spring fires do not come to Lothlórien Goldberry knows she will leave. It is passing into an age even she will never reach, now. The world grows more still as it darkens.

"You're very far away," Celebrían murmurs, tugging gently at her hair, and Goldberry looks up from where she had been pressing kisses to her strange little elf's thighs.

She meets her eyes, and _knows_. She licks at her glistening center in answer, presses the flat of her tongue against Celebrían where she is sweet like burning. "I was thinking about the world I will give you."


	22. chains through a midnight's shade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a dwarf leaves home and finds goldberry
> 
> goldberry/original dwarf lady, rated k

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from mandragora scream, 'frail midnight'
> 
> G36 (third age locations: the iron hills)

The roads decay, but the wanting thrumming in your bones like echoes of the miners' axes drives you down the Redwater, so strange to see under an open sky.

You are not yet out of the shadow of the Iron Hills when you meet a woman on the banks, and for all she is strange she is all you have journeyed to see.

"Well," she says when you tell her, "if you have left your home I must show you mine."

Her laugh is too much like the river, her lips too damp. The Redwater does not carry you forward.


	23. brand new nails across my skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> on claims given and denied
> 
> eowyn/arwen, rated k

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from katatonia, 'in the white'
> 
> N27 (book titles: the grass widow)

Éowyn returns to Rohan after laying Faramir to rest. His bones should lie with his city, though she aches at the cold empty unfairness that is Gondor's claim to her and Rohan's denied claim to him.

Instead she lies in the prickly-sweet winter grass, and lets the wind smooth out the jagged edges of the hole he has left behind. She does not pretend to be surprised when Arwen joins her, cradles her head in her lap and brushes tired fingers across her breasts.

 _Gondor needs you still_ , she says.

Éowyn closes her eyes, breathes earth and spice. _Not yet_.


	24. thousand and one stars bright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tar-miriel does not drown, nor does she live
> 
> tar-miriel/uinen, rated t
> 
>  **warnings:** drowning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from leaves' eyes, 'tale of the sea maid'
> 
> O44 (book titles: waiting in the wings)

Númenor sinks in pieces, bodies and land broken and swept by the tide while deep below the waves Uinen watches as the children with mouths filled now with water instead of scorn are returned to her.

Míriel falls last from her denied kingdom: her eyes alone are open, her arms alone flung wide to embrace the sea.

Her alone Uinen wants.

The land was never kind to Míriel; the sea, as Uinen seals her lips against Míriel's and breathes air into lungs already forgetting the taste of any other, is not kind either.

But in the sea she will prevail.


	25. to the end i'll never know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> be careful what you ask river-spirits for
> 
> celebrian/goldberry, rated k

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from austra, 'the future'
> 
> O44 (lyrics & poetry: and i said venice, and you heard vegas, but now i say: either way, let's go)

"Have you seen all the world?" Celebrían asks on one of the days when time feels more slippery than usual and the shadows more bold.

Goldberry, who hasn't left the river all morning, stares so carefully that Celebrían is sure she hardly sees her at all. "I have seen it through all the ages," she says, and it is not quite an answer.

Celebrían stands and sheds her dress, wades into the water to kiss Goldberry breathless.

"Show me," she says, eyes shining, and Goldberry thinks that her little elf has no idea what she's asking for.

But she will.


	26. your fingertips open spaces that make me complete

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> time moves on (loosely in the same 'verse as every other eowyn/arwen piece i've written this week)
> 
> eowyn/arwen, rated k

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from xandria, 'forever yours'
> 
> B8 (third age locations: gondor)

"You're waiting for something," Éowyn says one day when the world is fading faster than it ever has but Gondor stands stronger than it has been in hundreds of years.

"Yes," Arwen agrees from their bed, sheets pooling around her waist. She reaches out languidly, and Éowyn smiles at her in the mirror.

"Do you have regrets?"

Arwen bites her lip, and Éowyn thinks she much prefers it when that is her job. "No. Questions."

Éowyn sighs, and returns to the cradle of her arms. "I am not sure we want those answers even if the city would give them."


	27. those you have loved have snagged on your thorny veins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> does it really matter where you are when the world ends
> 
> eowyn/tauriel, rated k

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from hannah fury, 'girls that glitter love the dark'
> 
> B8 (lyrics & poetry: love until we burn up)

Tauriel had always expected to be alone at the end of the world. She has been alone for a very long time, tending the forest as it tends to her.

But there is a woman at the edges of the wood, tall and blonde and she eyes the forest as if it will consume her.

The years have turned enough that the rain burns them both, and Tauriel draws her deep within the trees despite her protests of open fields and Rohan's skies.

 _The world will end all at once, Éowyn,_ she tells her between kisses, _let us have this_.


	28. evening calls the sunset to rise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> goldberry does know loss
> 
> (past) goldberry/celebrian, rated m

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from xandria, 'some like it cold'
> 
> N21 (lyrics & poetry: but the rain is full of ghosts tonight)

Goldberry floats just barely beneath the surface of the water, lets the rain that falls ceaselessly around her seal her utterly into her solitude.

She does not need to breathe but she pretends, swallows the river and lets her chest rise and fall just like her little elf's did. She has no heart but she imagines it beats faster in time with the rain as her fingers drift over her naked skin, pinch her nipples and slip deep inside her where they are not enough.

The river swells as she screams her release in silence, and Celebrían is still gone.


	29. all i could see her eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tauriel knows too much
> 
> galadriel/melian, rated k

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from sonata arctica, 'white pearl black oceans'
> 
> N21 (book titles: the price of salt)

Galadriel does not cry for her exile. She does not cry at all, saltwater tears slipping against her cheeks and lips too reminiscent of an ocean that pours from her ring but she has no desire to see.

She meets Tauriel close to the end, when Lothlorien is beginning to crack the bonds of Nenya's spells, and she is older but still too proud to mimic the tear-tracks on the younger elf's face.

 _She is waiting for you_ , Tauriel says, though she shouldn't know about Melian. _Neither she nor the ocean will mind_.

(In this too Tauriel knows too much.)


	30. who put these bodies between us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> goldberry has a collection, part 2
> 
> goldberry/uinen, rated t

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from metric, 'calculation theme'
> 
> I16 (lyrics & poetry: i'm searching for something that i can't reach)

She counts her losses like she counts her dolls, the ones that slipped away and the ones that disappointed her and the ones who were lost before her waters could take them.

Her dolls are pretty but not enough, silent in the riverbed.

At the ocean's beginning there is a woman as wild and hungry as as the sea and she tastes like salt before the beginning of the world when Goldberry runs her tongue down the valley between her breasts.

But her favourite times are the ones where there are no bodies, only the water, only their shared collections.


	31. through the eternal flame i travel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> berúthiel returns home, and to war
> 
> berúthiel/ofc, rated m-ish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from opeth, 'the apostle in triumph'
> 
> G33 (third age locations: harad)

She returns to Harad still a queen, for all that her name will not be found in books. No matter. Better her name live in memories than be left lying around for anyone to find.

Gondor's secrets are in her blood now, and with them the memories of the power her people once held.

Her lieutenant's sword on the battlefield is cruel, her mouth between Berúthiel's thighs wicked on nights when Harad's stars fall to rest beneath her eyelids.

Númenor remains black, Númenor will move again north, she will again be Queen, this time with her lieutenant at her side.


	32. kaldt, kaldt i kvelds brisen (cold, cold in the evening breeze)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lothlorien knows that war will come again
> 
> galadriel/tauriel, rated t

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from the 3rd and the mortal, 'vandring'
> 
> G32 (third age locations: lothlorien)

Lothlórien waits. Erebor has been reclaimed, the Necromancer fled, and still the darkness does not recede. Still spiders crawl MIrkwood's trees, still Lothlórien turns to silver.

It is not Tauriel's forest — it is hardly forest, now — but here she abides until war comes again. She offers Galadriel her sword, jests with the marchwardens. They are not her guards; they are, still, kind.

Nights, Galadriel runs bold fingers over her bare skin, and when they kiss they pretend there is nothing in the shadows that can see.

 _I promise_ , Tauriel whispers. It is not the same. It is not yet forever.


	33. wash the colour from the sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you are not safe from the sky
> 
> melian/galadriel, melian/ungoliant, rated t

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from guilt machine, 'twisted coil'
> 
> B5 (book titles: her name in the sky)

Elves loved the stars first and best, but no matter how Galadriel tries to tell her the stories in the lights, Melian cannot help but read those etched into the void.

She remembers thin-spun webs and the woman at their centre who was never caught but who ensnared her all the same. She remembers shadows stretching spinning aching around her and how the spider's mandibles clicked in smiles wide enough to swallow the world twice over.

The Girdle trembles, holds. She does not trust it reaches high enough. In Galadriel's arms she watches the stars burn out one by one.


	34. collapse and come undone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> be careful what you ask river-spirits for, part 2
> 
> celebrian/goldberry, rated m

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from collide, 'frozen'
> 
> B9 (lyrics & poetry: you're touching me like you have no desire for closure)

"I thought," Celebrían manages between gasps, "that this — oh — this was supposed to be about — there, _please_ — about saying goodbye."

Goldberry just laughs and tongues her faster in response, and Celebrían moans as the vibrations ripple through her. Goldberry has always liked her best just like this, waist-deep in the river so she's surrounded on all sides, until Celebrían comes with a cry and arches far enough back to slip Goldberry's grip.

"Sweet girl," Goldberry smiles when Celebrían stands again. Her hair is a mess, mouth and chin glistening in the moonlight. "Who said _I_ was saying goodbye to _you_?"


	35. winter state, oppressive wait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> something in minas tirith is Not Right
> 
> eowyn/arwen, rated k
> 
>  **warnings:** eh you know this particular eowyn/arwen 'verse i'm playing in the boys die

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from katatonia, 'soil's song'
> 
> G32 (book titles: the dark wife)

Minas Tirith claws at Arwen as though her skin was the soil it is buried in and her blood the sky. Her hands are calloused from the rebuilding but she does not know what it is to rule.

She is drawn to Éowyn, over and over, for all they are both married women. _You know_ , she murmurs to sweat-slick skin between hungry kisses and wandering hands, _you know, you must_ , and Éowyn hums in what might be agreement.

For years she does not know if their whispers are truth or hope. Until the land takes Faramir, and Aragorn soon after.


	36. whispering fingertips on dripping skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the wine from dorwinion is so good because the grapes are grown from people-dirt of course
> 
> ofc/ofc, uinen/ofc, rated t
> 
>  **warnings:** hella death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from the 3rd and the mortal, 'horizons'
> 
> B9 (third age locations: dorwinion)

In Dorwinion the land is green and the land is kind and you lie with your girl in the vineyards for hours without end, blossoms caught in your hair and hers.

(In Dorwinion the Rhûn howls against its storm-lashed banks, Uinen half-manifest and half-mad in her isolation where you dare not speak her name.)

In Dorwinion you kiss your girl goodnight and hold her hand as the vineyard grows around her, dirt creeping up her body til even her wine-stained lips are gone.

(In Dorwinion Uinen swallows you whole and you rage because your death ought not have been hers.)


	37. in the strangest land i will grasp my chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and we finish the week off with a triple-drabble, a threesome and murder, because, obviously
> 
> witch-king!miriel/lady of the blue brooch/goldberry, rated m
> 
>  **warnings:** i think the relationship is a warning in and of itself tbh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from iamamiwhoami, 'hunting for pearls'
> 
> B9 (book titles: the will of the empress)

The first time Míriel tries to command the waters, she fails.

 _Stay_ , she commands, but she is swept far, so far away. When she lands and she is offered a ring she takes it without a thought. Never again will she be denied.

 _You are in my service now_ , he says, and she is too practiced to laugh.

 _Yes_ , she replies, and his belief is repayment for the years she spent imprisoned.

Her riders are bold, cruel and smart enough to pledge their swords to her. Her favourite clasps her cloak in blue in defiance of their lord, and Míriel knows it for the promise it is. Her favourite has silky black hair that waterfalls through Míriel's fingers and she makes the sweetest noises when three of Míriel's fingers work inside her and the other hand pulls.

They ride for the halfling and the she-elf calls the river-water up and up and up. Míriel will not be drowned again.

 _Stay_ , she commands, and seven of her riders are gone but she and her favourite are tangled together on the bank and the woman leaning over them could be the river itself, thin and blue and wavering around the place where Míriel's heart used to be because strange recognises strange.

(Her favourite feels it too. All of them bound by a thread that could cut the world.)

 _Presumptuous_ , the river-woman says, _and intriguing_. Her eyes are sharper than her teeth, but not by much. _Are you here to make ready the world for me?_

Míriel's favourite rests her chin on her shoulder and grins. Míriel pulls the river-woman down to their level.

 _For us_ , she corrects. _Join us, river-woman, and we will not let you burn._

 _And I will not let you drown_ , she promises both of them with a kiss.


End file.
